Demon Queened Ch. 10

Standing naked in my bedroom with my back pressed against the wall, lacking even a towel to hide behind, I fought to maintain my composure as I took in the sight before me.

Sylvanna stood in the center of the room. Combining the best traits of slime and girl, she actually cut a rather striking figure, with a delicate little nose, soft-looking lips, and bright pink eyes, all carved in perfect detail from the same pink gelatinous slime. Her body mimicked that of a human above the waist, including her currently uncovered tits which displayed a size and perkiness to rival my own. The illusion dropped below the waist however, as what would be legs had instead formed into a single amorphous base. A tentacle, protruding from the base of her body, was currently wrapped tightly around Bailey's snout.

Abigail, standing behind Sylvanna, was mouthing "sorry," but I ignored her. My focus was locked on Bailey, who was lying on the ground, pawing desperately at the tendril that constrained her. Every time her claws cut through the slime it simply reconstructed itself before it could snap, yet Bailey refused to stop seemingly desperate to escape. It took all my willpower not to freeze the tentacle solid and break it off by force. As it was, I could feel my blood begin to boil.

"Wow, Queen Devilla..." Sylvanna smirked. "I guess the rumors were true! You really are showing everyone a whole new side of yourself. And it seems we're getting quite a view..."

"Let her go," I commanded, ignoring the barb and snarling at the slime while pointing to Bailey.

"The monster?" Sylvanna arched a translucent eyebrow. "That's what we're starting with? No throwing a fit at me for walking into your room? No screaming at your maid for daring to let me in, even though she couldn't stop me if she tried?"

"I said to let her go, Sylvanna. Last warning."

"Fine, fine," Sylvanna conceded, waving her hand dismissively. "No need to snap, it was just a little security measure. Your stupid monster kept trying to eat me." The tentacle around Bailey's snout receded, disappearing entirely into Sylvanna's body. "Now can we talk?"

"In a moment," I told Sylvanna through gritted teeth, before moving to kneel down next to Bailey. I stroked the wolf's snout, traveling from her nose all the way up to her horn.

"You did good," I whispered, even knowing that she couldn't understand me. I wanted to reach out to her telepathically, but I still hadn't tested whether I could pull that off without ingesting one of her hairs. Experimenting on myself was one thing, but I wouldn't risk anyone else.

Even though Bailey couldn't understand me, she seemed to take comfort in my tone and touch. She stopped whining, and instead licked my hand and wagged her tail.

Once I was certain Bailey was fine, I rose to my feet and turned back to Sylvanna, narrowing my eyes at the slime girl. "That 'monster' you attacked happens to be a demon, and a friend. She was simply trying to protect me from an unwelcome intruder."

"Oooh, unwelcome! Do you see how harsh she is with me, Abby?" Sylvanna turned her head to pout at my maid, ignoring my glare. "And she's such a bad liar, too. I've memorized the census report for the entire tower, and we don't have a single horned wolf girl in it. I've never even heard of the species!"

"I'm not lying," I snapped before Abigail could respond. "She's a new resident, and a new species. She was born to an actual horned wolf, as it happens. I trust you know what that means?"

"That you're a really bad liar?" Sylvanna shrugged. "You expect me to believe you just happened to prove the origin of monster girls while you were out on your little vacation?"

"Vacation? I was collecting salt!"

"For three days?" Sylvanna countered, hands perched on her gelatinous hips. "Sounds like a vacation to me. Though, wait..." She mused, placing a hand against her chin, and stroking the tip with her thumb. "Do you still call it a vacation if you weren't working to begin with? I mean, you don't really do anything, do you?"

"That's..." Not fair. That was what I wanted to say. But it actually was, wasn't it? I was supposed to be the queen, the ruler of my people, and yet I did so little to actually lead them.

I wasn't alone in that, mind you. One of the few lessons I'd actually taken to heart was how demon queens throughout the ages had delegated the work of ruling. Some said it was a tradition set by Luci herself, who felt that divine beings had no business governing the minutiae of mortal lives. We still wielded absolute authority of course, but we rarely used it.

In my case, I'd given the power of rule to my generals. The exact nature of their duties varied - for example I had Yara on the bottom floors, managing our food supply, just as Mifa and her harpies were theoretically in charge of scouting. Regardless of what else they handled, however, by and large each of the demon generals acted akin to human nobles, running ten floors apiece.

None of that was an issue, at least for the moment. While part of me thought I should try for a constitutional monarchy, I knew better than to uproot our current system while we were still on the verge of extinction. The problem was that no matter how much a queen delegated, someone still had to oversee everything. Whether it was warding off corruption, mediating disputes between generals, or simply signing things into law, someone still had to wield the actual power of a queen.

That was where Sylvanna came in. Since there was no distinction between a slime girl's body and brain, Sylvanna was able to turn her entire being towards figuring out complex problems. On top of that, she could split herself into copies and merge again, allowing her to do the job of an entire team by herself. It made her a near ideal administrator for the tower. Absolutely perfect, except for one tiny, little detail.

Sylvanna, the only slime in the tower, absolutely loathed work. She was a hedonistic slut by nature, desiring nothing but sex, food, and drink. She indulged constantly. Even as half of her body was devoted to working, and another third to sleeping, the remainder was split in four to ensure she could participate in some form of debauchery at all times. As such, Sylvanna was working, eating, sleeping, fucking, and drinking all at the same time, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

I couldn't even imagine how exhausting that had to be. That was why she took every opportunity to belittle me. And how was I supposed to protest? How was I supposed to call her words unfair, when her hard work was the only reason I had so much free time?

"That's not fair!"

My head snapped up as the words I chose not to speak echoed through the room. Abigail, visible through Sylvanna, had one hand on her hip and a scowl on her lips.

"That's not fair," she repeated when Sylvanna turned around to face her. "Devilla is trying. She got salt for the whole tower, and a new vegetable called 'potatoes,' which is actually pretty damn delicious fried. And okay, there were definitely better uses of her time, but she's trying, and you don't get to just come in here and tear her down like that!"

"Feisty," Sylvanna jabbed, crossing her arms beneath her voluptuous chest. "But you should try defending literally anyone else. Maybe check the dungeons? You'll find murderers with more empathy for their fellow demons than that girl."

"That's-"

"Enough!" I interrupted, stepping forward and slashing my hand through the air to mark an end to the conversation. "It's appreciated, Abigail. Honestly. But you aren't going to convince Sylvanna of anything like this."

"Did you two practice this?" Sylvanna accused, looking back and forth between Abigail and me. "Let me guess - she's tired of me calling her out as a selfish, self-centered brat, so she's making you pretend she actually has a good heart or some such malarky. Probably made you memorize a whole script, right? Oooh, did she complain about not having enough lines, even though she wrote it?"

"Is there a purpose behind your being here?" I asked, trying and failing to keep the frustration from my voice. "It must be important if I'm meeting with all ten feet of you." Saying it was rare for all of Sylvanna to gather in one place would be a drastic understatement. I hadn't seen her whole in years, not since she'd first taken the job of administrator.

"Really?" Sylvanna asked, stretching out her malleable torso so that she could peer down at me from up high. "You can't even guess? Not even a vague hunch? I mean, whatever could the tower administrator want with the queen? It's not like she was promised anything!" She was shouting by the end, her voice laced with sarcasm.

"Promised...? Ah!" My eyes widened with sudden understanding. A promise made between me and Sylvanna? There was only one that came to mind. It was the reason she'd agreed to become my administrator in the first place, despite her hatred of work. It was also part of why I'd been avoiding her.

"You promised me you'd free my people, Devilla! You went through the Rite of Insight. You learned holy magic! And I've done everything you've asked. So why are my people still under the Heroine's spell?" She leaned further forward with each word till her back was craned forward at a truly ridiculous angle, taking up much of the room.

"You know I hate it when you loom over me," I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest, and pointedly looking away. I'm sure I looked like a petulant child to everyone in the room. My words certainly suited that image, but the sad truth was that I was simply trying to buy time to think.

Sylvanna's people, the Slime Girls. A long-lived race that rarely propagated, despite being quite good at it. From what I'd been told, they used to celebrate a species-wide holiday. Once every fifty years, all the slimes on the continent would gather together and merge, sharing their thoughts and experiences with the entirety of their population. For one glorious day, the many became one.

It was on that day of union, twenty-one years ago, that the previous Heroine made her move. According to the single eyewitness report, she'd snuck her way into the festivities, strode up to the merged slimes, and with a few whispered words turned the entire great being to stone.

Sylvanna, too young to participate in the merge, was granted a temporary reprieve so that she could spread word of what had been done to her people. Frightened, she came straight to the tower to tell my mother what had happened. And my mother, who had just barely finished giving birth to me, immediately flew off to fight the Heroine and save those poor, petrified slimes.

And that was how she died.

For a long time, some part of me blamed Sylvanna for that. It wasn't her fault, obviously. My mother knew what she was stepping into from the start, I'm sure. But I think that anger was what led me to do what I did - as poor an excuse as it was.

I had dangled the freedom of Sylvanna's people before her. I told her that I would only turn them back if she helped me maintain my rule. I abused her, in a way that I'm not sure can ever be forgiven. And now here I was trying to ignore the problem simply because I couldn't fix it. Sylvanna was completely right about my selfishness.

I wanted to set things right, of course. I needed to set things right. But reversing petrification was holy magic; I couldn't cast it without knowing the right words.

"I thought you'd be used to getting loomed over," Sylvanna remarked, interrupting my thoughts. "You know, considering how short you are." She twisted about without moving her base, easily shifting her upper half a hundred and eighty degrees to look at Abigail, before pointing a finger back in my direction. "Did you know she's only five foot three? It took me a while to notice because she's almost never out of heels."

"I am five foot four and you know it!" I snapped.

"And there you have it," Sylvanna declared, pressing one arm into her waist and taking an impossibly deep bow even as she turned back toward me. "The spoiled princess. The real Devilla Satanne. Good to see you drop the act! Now, tell me why you still haven't freed my people. Unless you'd prefer me taking an extended break from running this damn tower?"

For a long moment, I stood silent, quietly turning the problem before me over and over in my mind. Sylvanna was the force that single-handedly kept the tower running. She was threatening to quit if I didn't do what she wanted. I couldn't tell her no, for both moral and practical reasons, yet if I said yes she'd find out my impotence immediately.

"I... can't," I confessed, seeing no alternative. "I messed up the Rite of Insight. I don't know the spell."

Lying would be pointless. Sylvanna would see straight through any fib I told, and I didn't want to tell one besides. The only way out of this situation, the only way to make up for my past actions, was to be honest with Sylvanna. Then maybe, just maybe, we could work toward a solution together.

"...You don't know the spell?" Sylvanna repeated, her voice barely above a whisper. "Are you telling me that after a lifetime of 'I'll learn everything I need to know from the Rite,' you messed it up?"

"That's right," I confirmed, nodding solemnly. "But I think we can still save your people. We just need to work together a little while longer."

"Right. By which you mean I should work for you a little bit longer, and you should... what? Goof off? Fuck around? Find some 'potatoes'?"

"I told you, that's not fair," Abigail protested before I could respond. "I don't know your full history, but whatever Devilla did to you in the past she's changed. I know what she used to be like, but she's honestly trying her best to do better."

"Still defending our Queen?" Sylvanna challenged. "Don't tell me you actually believe that crap? People like Devilla don't change. They don't get better. That would require them admitting something was wrong to begin with."

"Holy hell, you're almost as stubborn about this as she is," Abigail groaned, before jabbing at Sylvanna with her finger. "Devilla realized something was wrong with her behavior and started making an effort to change it, which is more than I can say for you!"

"That's-"

"Enough!" I interrupted, raising my voice to cut through their argument. Both figures turned to me. Abigail seemed surprised by my outburst; Sylvanna merely looked smug.

"Can't stand being left out of the conversation, can you?" she sniped, smirking triumphantly. "Even when it's all about you to begin with. Same Devilla as always - eternally trying to be the center of attention."

"Believe that if you wish. I deserve whatever you have to say about me, and worse. What I did was wrong, and I am sorry. Deeply and terribly so. But arguing isn't going to bring your people back."

"And neither are you," Sylvanna snapped. "You already said you don't know the spell."

"No, I don't, but I can get it." I noticed Abigail's eyes widening in surprise, but I chose to ignore it. I knew I was taking a gamble here, but if there was another choice I wasn't smart enough to find it.

Besides, Sylvanna deserved to hear the truth.

"You can get it?" she demanded, suddenly jerking forward so her eyes (or what passed for them) were even with mine. "How? The only one allowed to speak the holy tongue is the demon queen, and you just told me you don't know it!"

"That's not exactly true, though. The Heroine knows it as well." And the church, I assumed, since someone had to teach her. The humans probably didn't have a law against writing down the holy tongue. I wasn't entirely sure why we demons did. Another detail that would have been explained by the Rite of Insight, no doubt.

"...You're joking." The look in Sylvanna's gelatinous eyes was one of pure disdain, as if she were looking at a particularly ugly bug. "You want to make a deal with one of those genocidal maniacs? She'd give you a spell, alright! One to turn them into mush!"

"The current heroine isn't like that!" I objected, stepping closer to Sylvanna, until our noses were almost touching.

I expected the slime girl to move backwards. Instead, she morphed her hand into a tentacle to wrap around my neck, lifted my unfortunately light body up before I had a chance to react, and slammed me against my bedroom wall. I found myself suddenly at eye level with Sylvanna, whose malleable face was twisted with rage. Even Bailey, crouched on the floor, seemed momentarily stunned by the suddenness of it.

"What do you know about it?" Sylvanna demanded. "You've never met one of them before. The pure contempt in that human's eyes when she looked at me - the way she talked about petrifying my people like it was just something to check off her to-do list. Those monsters have no respect for demon lives!"

Bailey, recovering from her shock, got to her feet and released a low growl, her lips pulling back to reveal her fangs. It looked like she was about to attack Sylvanna, despite knowing it would be futile, but Abigail stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the wolf. That, combined with a stern look from me, was enough to stop her.

"You're wrong," I told Sylvanna, my feet dangling beneath me as I glared back at her. "Maybe the last Heroine was like that. In fact, I'm sure most of them were. But I've met the current Heroine, and I can tell you now that she is different. I can convince her to help. I just need time."

"You've met her?" Sylvanna asked. Her eyes, like Abigail's, had no pupils. They were merely shallow copies, created from Sylvanna's slime. Yet despite that, perhaps because of my experience with Abigail, I felt certain that Sylvanna's eyes were boring into mine, fury flickering behind them. "You've met her!? What are you planning? Are you going to betray us? Hoping you can live a cushy life if you just turn the rest of us over?"

"Do you truly think so little of me?" I hissed, appalled. I might have been lazy, selfish, and even cruel, but even at my worst I had never taken my subjects' lives that lightly. I'd never ordered an execution, or a public whipping. Even my threat about Sylvanna's people had been nothing more than a bluff.

But that didn't make a difference to Sylvanna, did it? She believed that bluff. Of course she'd believe that I was capable of this too. What had she ever seen that would convince her otherwise?

"Sylvanna," I breathed, laying my hand upon the tendril that was wrapped about my neck. "I did something terrible. I'm sure I betrayed whatever trust you had in your ruler that day. And I know I have no right to your forgiveness. But even though I have no right to ask it, I'm begging you to trust me. Please - help me save your people."

"She means it!" Abigail called out, rising to her feet and stepping between me and Sylvanna. She placed a hand against my thigh, and squeezed it faintly in what I took to be a sign of support. "I know you don't believe it, but she really has changed. She's trying to broker peace with the Heroine, to end the war and save our people."

For a long moment, Sylvanna didn't speak. She didn't even move, her gelatinous form frozen in place. She simply held me in place against the wall, staring into my eyes. Then, without warning, she dropped me to the floor, her tendril receding into the shape of a hand.

"Help you save my people, huh...?" Sylvanna murmured, staring down at me. "Those are the same exact words you used when you made me your administrator. But for some insane reason, it almost sounds like you mean it this time. There must be something seriously wrong with me for even asking this, but can you give me a single reason to trust you?"